Emergency Management : Florida Atlantic University – College of Engineering & Computer Science
— Read on www.eng.fau.edu/news/1911_emergency-managment.php
Many communities that have issue with older infrastructure may suffer from loss of economic opportunities (Flint, Detroit, Cleveland). This compounds the problem with local capacity for maintenance and report of infrastructure. Many of these issues result from the lack of funding due to the unwillingness of local officials to raise water rates and address hidden infrastructure. Others may feel limited due to the loss of economic activity – Rust Belt cities and the northeast are older; inner cities may be more impacted. Different areas of the country will have different needs and maybe different magnitudes of need. Rural communities may not have funding to replace infrastructure. The first community that abandoned their system was rural. Newer communities with newer pipe will have far less needs today, but few are taking steps to avoid the infrastructure pitfalls that have hit older communities. Ultimately these conditions make for a huge backlog of deferred infrastructure investments, mostly in pipe and service lines beneath roads. The only good news is that by correcting the piping, much of the roadway base issues could also be resolved concurrently.
A concurrent problem in the communities hardest hit with infrastructure issues is often that there is pool of skilled labor, but said labor may not be skilled in areas to address their own infrastructure problems. Likewise youths may be challenged to find work local. The solution to both issues may be similar to that posed by the CETA programs in the late 1970s. In those programs local and state governments were given funds to hire staff to be trained for certain jobs, with the intention that these trained workers would become part of a permanent, expanded workforce. A similar solution today as a part of an infrastructure bill could be to provide local and state governments for funding for personnel to be trained to perform such work. The workers could receive training on safety, OSHA issues, and equipment from a local community college or university that would be paid for by the infrastructure bill. These same people would then be hired by local governments to perform rehabilitation and replacement work, fully funded initially by the federal government s but with an anticipated transition period where by 10 years out, the workforce could be demonstrated to have been expended as a result of the program.
Note that hiring by local governments is a key. Private sector hiring tends to be job specific and the jobs disappear when the activity moves or ceases. Hence finding the private sector likely leads only to a temporary increase in labor development. Local government hiring would more likely increase permanent employment. The local agencies would need to be given an incentive to encourage this since far too many elected officials see government employment as a negative thing. This is partly why we have the infrastructure quagmire today. That attitude needs to change.
The private sector will want their share, and privatization is a confounding issue because people get laid off through privatization and indications are that the middle class gets hurt by privatization (lower wages for the same job). But the public sector does not manufacture pipe, equipment like backhoes and rollers and other materials would be paid to private vendors in accordance with local and state bid rules. That would move monies for capital to private vendors. For large projects the work rules could be applied to contractors much like the ARRA funding requirements – shovel ready and US materials and newly trained staff making up a portion of the work force. That would meet the tenets of local jobs, fixing local problems with federal dollars for a period of time, perhaps as a mix of grants and low interest loans.
At least 20 years of infrastructure needs exist. Hence the longer term program could be sustained. A funding mechanism is in place via state revolving fund programs for a portion of the effort, much like the water, sewer and stormwater funds were channeled through the SRF programs under the ARRA program. WIFIA and other programs could be used as a dispersal agent, so new bureaucracies would not need to be created. A prior pattern for implementation is in place and would just need to be “dusted” off an updated. Bi-partisan support enacted these program in the past and it would seem this would be good for all.
The potential for concern would be raised by private utilities (power, cable, telephone and private water and sewer utilities) which would be effectively shut out of funding, but they are private entities and they have the ability to raise funds on the private equity market. Capitalism will work well for these organizations, but it does not for most local public works infrastructure systems. That is why they are public, not private. Some local governments would resist the requirement to expand the workforce – but that is their choice – a requirement to participate is not implied just as it is not with SRF funds. Local business communities would likely drive the effort to be involved.
So now we wait and see if anything happens……
The reliability of the assets within the area of interest starts with the design process in the asset management plan. Decision-making dictates how the assets will be maintained and effective means to assure the maximum return on investments. Through condition assessment, the probability of failure can be estimated. Assets can also fail due to a growing area that may contribute to exceeding its maximum capacity. Operation and maintenance of the assets are important in reassuring a longer life span as well as getting the most out of the money to be spent. Prioritizing the assets by a defined system will allow for the community to see what areas are most susceptible to vulnerability/failure, which assets need the most attention due to their condition, and where the critical assets are located in relation to major public areas (hospitals, schools, etc.) with a high population.
So what happens when conditions change? Let’s say sea levels are rising and your land is low. What would the potential costs be to address this? Better yet, what happens if it rains? We looked at one south Florida community and the flood stage for each based on 3 storm events: the 1:10 used by FDOT (Assumes 2.75 inches in 24 hours), the Florida Building Code event that includes a 5 in in one hour event (7 in in 24 hrs), and the 3 day 25 year event (9.5-11 inches).
Of no surprise is that the flooding increases as rainfall increases. Subsequent runs assumed revisions based on sea level rise. The current condition, 1, 2 and 3 ft sea level rise scenarios were run at the 99 percentile groundwater and tidal dates and levels. Tables 2-5 depict the flood stage results for each scenarios. The final task was designed to involve the development of scenarios whereby a toolbox options are utilized to address flooding in the community. Scenarios were to be developed to identify vulnerabilities and cost effectiveness as discussed previously.
The modeling results were then evaluated based of the accompanying infrastructure that is typically associated with same. A summary of the timelines and expected risk reductions were noted in the tables associated with storm and SLR scenarios. This task was to create the costs for the recommended improvements and a schedule for upgrading infrastructure will be developed in conjunction with staff. Two issues arise. First, the community needs to define which event they are planning to address and the timelines as the costs vary form an initial need of $30 million to over $300 million long-term. Figure 1 shows how these costs rise with respect to time. The long-term needs of $5 million per 100 acres matches with a prior effort in Palm Beach County.
Figure 1 Summary of Costs over the 3 ft of potential sea level Rise by 2011, under the 3 storm planning concepts.
The average is 4% of visible infrastructure is in poor condition. Actually 4-6% depending on the municipality. And this was visible infrastructure, not buried, but there is not particular reason to believe the below ground infrastructure is somehow far worse off. Or better. That 4-6% is infrastructure that needs to be fixed immediately, which means that as system deteriorate, there is catch –up to do. The good news is many of the visible problems were broken meter boxes, damaged valve boxes, broken curbs and broken cleanouts- minor appearing issues, but ones that likely require more ongoing maintenance that a water main. And the appearance may be somewhat symptomatic – people perceive that the system is rundown, unreliable or poorly maintained when they see these problems. It raises a “Tipping Point” type discussion. “Tipping Points” Is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell that I read last year (great book – my wife found it in a book exchange for free in Estes Park last summer). It was along a similar vein of thought as the Freakanomics books – the consequences of certain situations may be less clear than one thinks. The Tipping point that is most relevant is crime in New York in the early 1990s after Bernard Goetz shot several assailants in the subway. The problem was significant and the subways were thought to be among the higher risk areas. The new police chief and Mayor decided that rather that ignore the petty crimes (like many large cities do), they would pursue those vigorously. So fare hopping on the train and the like were challenged immediately. They decided that no graffiti would be visible on the subways and cleaned cars every night to insure this remained the case. Cars with graffiti were immediately removed from service. New subway cars were ordered. Pride and public confidence improved. Crime dropped. The impact of their efforts was that people recognized that criminal behavior would not be tolerated and fairly quickly criminal activity decreased. It was a big success story, but the underlying reasons were less discussed, but easily transferrable to our infrastructure. If we have broken valve boxes, meters, cleanouts, storm drains etc., the same perceptions of a rundown community rise. Rundown communities lead to a loss of public confidence and trust and pride. And none of those help our mission or our efforts to increase infrastructure spending. 4% might not look like much, but it can drastically change the perception of the community. So let’s start to fix those easy things; and document that we did in our asset management programs.
How many utilities have a 3D map of their infrastructure? Not many I bet. But FAU does. Here is a recently completed project we did with students and the Facilities Maintenance staff at FAU (costs involved). They needed better mapping and will tie this to their work order system. It was an excellent opportunity for two groups within one organization that otherwise seem to have little in common wot work toward a great project. We will be inputting this data into an online asset management system this summer along with some data for Dania Beach so they will have a portion of their utility system in 3D also. This is part of a tiny project we did for their downtown area.
GIS is a powerful tool and one utilities should embrace wholeheartedly. There is so much more than mapping to do. Data gathering in critical, but with Leica and Trimble units, a lot of data can be gathered easily. LiDAR can be expensive, but the value is tremendous. You can see that the FAU system is laid on a 3D LiDAR topographic map (6 in vertical accuracy). Asset condition assessments were also done concurrently, which adds a lot of information to the system (all assets were also photographed and linked). Drawing files can be downloaded and extruded from 2D to 3D. Engineers know GIS or can learn it, which makes a fully expanded GIS system for the utility easy to derive if the time is spent. This is a valuable tool when linked to work orders and asset management programs.
So is your utility in 3D? 
I thought this was pretty interesting. We drive on highways all the time. Many are asphalt surfaces, but there are a lot of concrete roads (many with asphalt on top of them) that provide service today. We also have a lot of utilities under these roads. Concrete is a stronger surface, but also hides leaks and breaks, making the job harder to locate and fix repairs. And it spalls in northern environments where salt is used on the roads. Utility folks don’t think about roads a lot, but they are integral to our service. 1909 was the first…
https://michpics.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/april-20-1909-the-worlds-first-mile-of-concrete-highway/
A project I am currently involved with looks at the impacts of climate change on public health in southeast Florida. The initial grant focused on looking at socially vulnerable populations and the impact on chronic diseases these groups from climate change. The question was whether climate change, which in southeast Florida is basically sea level rise, would have an impact on health issues. On the face of it, the correlation between chronic health conditions and climate seems tenuous although the statistics support the link between chronic health impacts and socially vulnerable populations. But what is interesting is that in general, the climate vulnerable topography and the socially vulnerable people do not correlate. This may be a southeast Florida issue, but it is the less socially vulnerable who live in the climate vulnerable topography.
Those familiar with the history of southeast Florida know that makes sense because of the beaches. The beaches are topographically vulnerable but eh wealthy want to live there anyway. But the problem is more pervasive. The data actually can be mined further to reveal that the older homes (1940s-1960s), generally smaller and of lower value, were traditionally built on the high ground. Turns out our ancestors were a little smarter than we thought – they actually thought this out. Aside from Henry Flagler building the railroad on the high ground, most of the cities were located similarly – on the coastal ridge. Drainage of the Everglades permitted the western migration of residences – newer and larger, but at lower elevation and mostly reliant on drainage across the ridge to the ocean via canals. But as sea level rises, the water moves more slowly.
The question that must be asked then is what happens as this housing stock ages? We already see some newer communities, primarily built for retirees, moving to relieve themselves of the 55+ designations to allow the housing stock to be sold – the children of the retirees don’t want the property and desire to sell it – often quickly. To increase speed of sales (and ultimately retaining some value), eliminating the 55+ opens younger families to move in. However the lower value of the properties makes them conducive to migration of people who are social vulnerability, so migration may be toward social vulnerable people moving to topographically challenged property. That portends poorly for the link between climate and health in the future.
Two issues arise from the research. First future health vulnerability from climate may be more related to vectors and waterborne disease than chronic health effects. That expands the health vulnerability to all populations. The second issue is that storm water, sewer roadway and water infrastructure may relieve some pressure on these topographically vulnerable properties, but the people who are moving to then will have significantly less ability to pay for those improvements, creating a political conundrum that will that a significant amount of leadership to overcome. That means that resiliency must be built into infrastructure and redevelopment projects now, to address future conditions. Building in resiliency is not currently being considered by local planners and engineers because the situation is not well understood and a 50 year planning horizon is not the norm. Also, it would likely create a firestorm of fuss from developers who would pay the costs, which discourages good planning.
Finally, if things accelerate, wealthier parties may begin to see a retreat from vulnerable eastern beaches to higher ground as being a reasonable concept. However the high ground is currently occupied by socially vulnerable people, creating a potential area of conflict over the fate of displaced residents who’s social status may force them toward the vacant, topographically vulnerable properties. This is a future problem for planners, developers and officials approving new development with an eye to displacement a concept not in the current thought process. Thinking about vulnerability means a lot of infrastructure must not only be constructed, but maintained meaning local public works and utility budgets will need to increase in kind. That means higher rates and charges to populations that may have limits to their ability to pay Stay tuned…..
In the last blog we discussed 10 planning steps for sea level rises. When planning 50-100 years other factors can come into play as well. As a result, to allow flexibility in the analysis due to the range of increases within the different time periods, an approach that uses incremental increases of 1, 2, and 3 feet of SLR is suggested. Hence infrastructure is built to meet milestones, not arbitrary dates lessening the potential for stranded assets.. The increments can work as threshold values in planning considerations in terms of allowing planners the ability to know ahead of time where the next set of vulnerable areas will be to allow a for proactive response approach that can be matched to the observed future sea levels.
But prior to developing infrastructure plans, the local community needs to define an acceptable level of service (LOS) for the community. A level service would indicate how often it is acceptable for flooding to occur in a community on an annual basis. 1% is 4 days per years and for a place like Miami Beach, this is nearly 2 ft NAVD88, well above the mean high tide. The failure to establish an acceptable LOS is often the cause of failure or loss of confidence in a plan at a later point in time. The effects of SLR of the level of service should be used to update the mapping to demonstrate how the level of service changes, so that a long-term LOS can be defined and used for near-term planning.
With the LOS known, the vulnerability assessment is developed using a GIS based map of topography and the groundwater levels associated with wet and dry season water levels. LiDAR is a useful tool that may be available at very high resolution in coastal areas. Topographic maps must be “ground-truthed” by tying it to local benchmarks and transportation plans. USGS groundwater and NOAA tidal data from local monitoring stations to correlate with the groundwater information. Based on the results of these efforts, the GIS-based mapping will provide areas of likely flooding.
GIS map should be updated with layers of information for water mains, sewer mains, canals, catch basins, weirs and stormwater facilities. Updating with critical infrastructure will provide a view of vulnerability of critical infrastructure that will be funded by the public sector. Ultimately policy makers will need more information to prioritize the needed improvements. For example, a major goal may be to reduce Economic Vulnerability. This means identifying where economic activity occurs and potential jobs. At-risk populations, valuable property (tax base) and emergency response may be drivers, which means data from other sources should be added.
The next step is to analyze vulnerability spatially, by overlaying development priorities with expected climate change on GIS maps to identify hotspots where adaptation activities should be focused. This effort includes identification of the critical data gaps which, when filled, will enable more precise identification of at risk infrastructure and predictions of impacts on physical infrastructure and on communities. The final deliverable will include descriptions of the recommended concepts including schematics, cost estimates, and implementation plan.
So why go through all this. Let’s go back to the beginning. It has to do with community confidence in its leaders. Resident look at whether their property will be protected. Businesses look at long-term viability when making decisions about relocating enterprises. The insurance industry, which has traditionally been focused on a one year vision of risk, is beginning to discuss long-term risks and not insuring property rebuild is risk-prone areas. That will affect how bankers look at lending practices, which likely will decrease property values. Hence it is in the community’s interests to develop a planning framework to adapt to sea level rise and protect vulnerable infrastructure through a long-term plan. Plan or….
I had to share this, from a nonscientific survey of people adamantly opposed to any consideration of changes to our climate:
1. I can’t do anything about it so I don’t care about it
2. People can’t alter what is happening with the earth because it is too big
3. It’s natural, so we can’t do anything about it
4. It’s not an issue now, so it’s somebody else’s future problem
5. The science is inconclusive so why do anything yet. Let’s see what happens
6. Trying to address it will cut jobs
7. We won’t be competitive (i.e our profits will drop)
8. It requires changing our business model (energy)
9. If we talk about it no one will develop in our community
10. Costs too much
I had to post this as many of you will have comments. But before you do, these about this a minute……
The first five are based on no facts, but a desire to ignore the issue entirely. The second five are more poignant because aren’t these pretty much the same arguments to deny the need to correct water pollution concerns in the 1930s? Or 1950s? Or even 1970s? Or even today with hog farms, frack water, acid mine waste, coal dust slurries, etc.? Or actually pretty much every regulation? I seem to recall Tom Delay making this argument when he was in Congress before he was indicted.
Now think about the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and others. These regulations are designed to correct ills of the past that were simply ignored due to the first five arguments above, ignoring the fact that prevention is always less costly than cleanup afterward. To we pass regulations to clean up problems and protect the public health going forward. Otherwise why have a regulation?
So let’s talk about that jobs impact. The reason is that after the passage of these regulations, didn’t the number of professional jobs (like civil and environmental engineers, environmental and other scientists – STEM jobs) increase? Isn’t increasing STEM jobs a priority? So won’t dealing with climate issue perhaps create a similar increase in STEM jobs? Yes, costs for water increased and the cost for the effects of climate changes will cost money, but don’t these challenges create opportunities? Isn’t this akin to dealing with problems with development from the past? Just asking…..
So Detroit defaulted on it’s debt obligations. Do does that impact you? Well, that depends on whether you are a utility looking revenue bonds, a city looking for general fund bonds or some combination. The issue in Detroit with debt is that they pledged the full faith and credit of their taxing authority to repay the debt. Their taxing ability was insufficient to accomplish this goal, which means that there could now be distrust in that promise for other cities. So if you are a city and you are making this pledge, Detroit could impact you, or at least create more review on your balance sheets. If you are a utility that is pledging revenues that have no limitations on amount, the concern is likely less. Of course in either cases, the question is what the rest of your balance sheet looks like. If you have no reserves, do not charge the full cost for service, have a heavy debt load, have high rates already, or send a lot of funds to the general fund, that could be a problem. If you have avoided these pitfalls, the bond market will see much less of an issue.
Keep in mind that Detroit is not the only default – another big one is the Birmingham and several other create questions about general fund uses of funds, which makes it of greater importance to keep our financial house in order. IN part this can be done by creating the appropriate enterprise funds and remove those services from the general property tax fund. That permits local focus on the true cost of general taxing users and creates a delineation between general fund and enterprise costs. That can help elected officials focus on the true general fund issues: police, fire, EMS, administration without hiding those costs with subsidies from other funds.
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